Greetings, mortals.
We, your all-powerful overlords of the Guild Ball Community Project, bring important news.
Put down that copy of Age of Marvel: Judgment Protocol, with which you have been trying to fill your worthless life.
Guild Ball is changing… and it will be perfect.
Season Five is here… and it is more perfect-er, for we have made it so.
We have discussed this with no one, for we know better.
Hear our truth!
Six models is too many models.
It is too confusing, it is not a prime number.
Five is a prime number.
We know animals are better than people.
As of today, Mascots and Captains will merge in one position.
Following the fine example of Veteran Captain Salt and Veteran Captain Strongbox, who were loved by all…
Veteran Captain Dirge shall be the Alpha and the Omega.
Join us next week for Veteran Captain Bondage Pig!
WE HAVE SPOKEN…
THERE WILL BE NO QUESTIONS AT THIS TIME… OR EVER.
All hail the Guild Ball Community Project!
VETERAN CAPTAIN DIRGE
Hi all, Hat here! It’s been a while since you heard anything from me, but there’s good reason for that. We’ve not been sitting still. 😉
Oh man, this one has been one of my personal favorites to work on. I’ve built in só many Easter eggs… Huge shoutout to Skerolf (@Wandler) to come up with some of the rules on this card as well!
First of all, I’d like to take this moment to thank Jamie Perkins (@Jamie Perkins), lead developer over at Steamforged Games, for taking care of the game that we know and love so much. Under his guidance, and obviously with great help from his colleagues, the game has grown into what we see today – a skirmish-type sports game with one of the tightest rulesets around in modern day wargaming, and that’s still one hell of a lot of fun to play with your mates!
Jamie has been one of the biggest influences for the Veteran Captain Dirge idea, mostly because of him constantly cracking jokes about Dirge being the actual captain of the Morticians. I just knew that I had to go with this for the April Fools project, hitting two birds with one stone.
Let’s dive into the card!
The Stats
Obviously, I’ve built in some fun aspects within his numbers.
First of all, the Morticians are considered as ‘the evil faction’ within the game of Guild Ball, so I immediately thought of the seven sins. TAC 7 and having a KICK distance of 7″ only felt natural here. I guess I should’ve added seven 7’s, but that would’ve been a bit too much.
Obviously, Veteran Captain Dirge is also the Alpha and the Omega – it is the answer to life itself. He is 42… DEF 4, ARM 2.
Dirge has been learning from his late master as well, which is why he copied Obulus’ 5 INF generation. Still though, being a Captain and a Squaddie, he can only have a max INF of 4. Sad days. 🙁
Lastly, Perkins is English. Dirge is a magical bird. What is also very English, and quite magical? Harry Potter. What platform did Harry need to go to at King’s Cross? 9 3/4. There we go, VCD’s health pool is 9 3/4.
The Playbook
If anything, the playbook has been designed to be wonky as hell. Looking at the Morticians, their playbooks are some of the worst in terms of momentum generation, so I thought I’d keep that line going… and only put in a single non-momentous result on this playbook.
Full of dodges, able to ignore Close Control with it’s momentous TT, easy to reach KD, buy plays off of the playbook with ease… What can’t this bird do?
But hey, what’s that at the end of the playbook? Is that a π (pi) symbol? Yes, yes it is. There’s two reasons for this symbol being on the card. One of which comes from Perkins again – Perkins is often described as a robot. Robots are very good at doing mathematics. π is used in mathematical formulas quite a bit. And I needed a mathematical symbol that gave a reasonable amount of damage when rounded down… 😀
The Characteristics
VCD is a Captain but also a Squaddie? It’s a Raven, but also a Robot? And a Fighter Jet? What…?
I guess the Robot part has an obvious link, but the Fighter Jet might not. The idea for this came from a conversation I had about Morticians with Will Stacey (@Edmond Dantes), about how awesome it would be to see Dirge as this fighter jet, locking onto models (Singled Out) and then sending its rockets in to destroy its target (i.e. Scalpel, Cosset, Pelage).
The Character Plays and Traits
Fog of War
Singled Out ++. The play basically states: if you and your opponent are positioned in this AOE, you both get +3 TAC on attacks. Way to get the chaos flowing!
Also, I was sad that AOE’s in Guild Ball had already been defined as 3″ in diameter. Would’ve been awesome to make it π in diameter… 😛
“You Can Be My Wingman Any Time”
Skerolf’s little baby. Target another 40mm base model. Move Dirge. Move target model for the same distance in the opposite direction. Please read it correctly – it says ‘model’, not ‘friendly model’. MORE CHAOS!
Also, I hope you all recognize the Top Gun reference. 😉 #fighterjetdirge
Live by the Sword, Die by the Sword
When Jamie and myself played against each other for the first time, it was on Vassal. He wanted to have a practice game before entering The Biggest Yet tournament, and I needed my practice to learn how to play the Order.
Long story short, during the game Jamie was presented with a problem and just went for the high-risk high-reward play, saying this line while doing it. It kind of stuck with me (and I changed it to “Live by the Ball, Die by the Ball” on my Order run). So I was thinking of something that was based on Obulus’ Rigor Mortis, and this trait came rolling out.
Quoth the Raven, Nevermore
Another one of Skerolf’s ideas. The card is already loaded with strong things, so it should also have some counter-play. Which led to this trait, which is basically a sort of Shutout ++ onto one of your own models if people take out VCD.
Master of Puppets
I’m guessing that the name for the legendary play won’t need an introduction, and the link to Obulus’ Puppet Master is also very easy to see. You basically get to use each model in 2π proximity for one action each, whether it is a jog, attack or kick.
Here we see the π symbol again, and this is based on me being a science guy and loving bad jokes. The auras around models are circles. Circles have a circumference, which is usually calculated using the formula of 2π * r, where r is the radius of the circle – the distance between the center of the circle and the edge of the circle. So basically the circumference of this play is 2π2π. 😆
Well then, I hope you like the model! Check out the post on Longshanks for more information on why the card has an actual model, and how you can get hold of said model!
Hope to talk to you very soon!
Obviously the model is meant as a joke, and it’s 100% unofficial fan art and design. None of this is trying to infringe on the Guild Ball IP.